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A New Look at the Union Wage Premium during the Early Years of the AFL

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  • Debbie Mullin

Abstract

This study provides new evidence showing that the union wage premium in the late nineteenth century in the United States was lower than previously believed. Analysis of wage and productivity data from an 1890 survey of individual workers in Maine yields a 9.2% union-nonunion wage gap, once correction is made for self-selection bias (the disproportionate representation in unions of workers who, because of skills and other attributes, would probably gain above-average wages even in the absence of unions). The author argues that business cycle conditions and distinctive union dynamics can affect the results of analyses that employ the Heckman procedure, a common procedure designed to correct for self-selection bias.

Suggested Citation

  • Debbie Mullin, 1998. "A New Look at the Union Wage Premium during the Early Years of the AFL," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 51(2), pages 253-268, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:51:y:1998:i:2:p:253-268
    DOI: 10.1177/001979399805100206
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. James J. Heckman, 1976. "The Common Structure of Statistical Models of Truncation, Sample Selection and Limited Dependent Variables and a Simple Estimator for Such Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 5, number 4, pages 475-492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Susan B. Carter and Richard Sutch., 1989. "Micro-Level Data Sets Suitable for Investigation of Macroeconomic Issues Extracted from Reports of the State Bureaus of Labor Statistics, Circa 1890," Economics Working Papers 89-114, University of California at Berkeley.
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    Cited by:

    1. William M. Boal, 2017. "What did Unions do? The Case of Illinois Coal Mining in the 1880s," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 439-474, December.

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